


hope belongs to other people

by tigerlo



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, F/F, Quite a bit of angst, character introspection, character study maybe?, mention of Charity's past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 10:50:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15928910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlo/pseuds/tigerlo
Summary: It’s like poison, sometimes: her own blood, agonising in its swiftness as it moves through her body, but Charity has always thought that there’s something oddly poetic about that.A look into Charity's head at the beginning of their relationship.





	hope belongs to other people

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the very early stages of their relationship after Charity's outed Vanessa to the pub, and probably after or around that outside kiss, but before their 'girlfriend' chat.
> 
> This is the first thing I think I ever wrote for vanity, funnily enough, and I just realised I'd never posted it so here it is. It's very dramatic, I will say that, and I'm not super sure about it but hopefully it's not dreadfully unreadable. There are a few vanity minifics that aren't posted here which you can find on my [tumblr](http://tigerlo.tumblr.com) if you're so inclined too, or want to come let me know what you thought of this, or you can leave a little comment belowwwww. I'm also never sure if something should be an E or an M but this felt a little more E than M so hopefully that hasn't misled anyone.
> 
> x

-

 

It’s like poison, sometimes: her own blood, agonising in its swiftness as it moves through her body, but Charity has always thought that there’s something oddly poetic about that.

 

It burns with the chaos her past is, and the pretence her present has become. It reminds her like the thump, thump, _thump_ from a war drum of who she has to be in this life, constantly tensed and ready for the eve of the next battle, to keep the pain from coming too close to her heart.

 

It’s like acid to those who touch her, too, those who come too close, has seen it burn across the skin of those who kiss her softly, and more often, those who _take_.

 

And she’s never wanted an antidote for it, she’s never not loved the way it holds others at a safe distance, where their blows and barbs aren’t enough to strike a fatal blow, only enough to glance her armour, maybe leave a dent or a bruise, bone-deep. She’s never wanted a cure before, not even for the children of her own body who she so desperately tries not to destroy irreparably as they grow, because somewhere deep down she knows it’s better if they leave her for clear skies one day too, like everyone else does.

 

She’s never wanted to be someone else, _something_ else, until Vanessa Woodfield.

 

And trust her, she’s tried hard _not_ to want that, she’s tried to push away every soft beat of her pulse, she’s tried to let the poison surge across her heart, searing her into a numbness, but for once, for _once_ , it doesn’t work.

 

Because Vanessa comes back.

 

Vanessa forgives after she pushes too far, when others would have left her, pathetic and alone again. Vanessa doesn’t leave, even when she should. She pushes Vanessa away, emotionally and sometimes, even physically, and still she comes back.

 

_Some fools are gluttons for punishment,_ Charity thinks with a dry laugh, every time she watches Vanessa dress in front of her in the early morning, when the sun glances over the both of them like a golden crown, because this wasn’t supposed to become _anything_ . This wasn’t supposed to be more than a good hard fuck with someone who was different, soft lips instead of rough hands, but somewhere along the line, Charity let this spin way out of control. She let it become something gentler, something terrifying. Something far too close to home, but Charity can’t find it in herself to regret it, she can’t find it within her surely-dead heart to _change_ anything about it, either.

 

Because if she’s honest with herself, brutally scaringly honest, she loves it, every part of it.

 

Charity loves Vanessa’s smothered sighs, her hand pressed tight over Vanessa’s mouth to muffle the sound when she slides her fingers _inside_ , she loves the way Vanessa’s skin ripples when she gets beneath it, her nails tearing at the vestige of normality, of domesticity, that sometimes settles between them when it stretches too tightly over her skin.  Because Charity isn’t normal. She doesn’t want normal. She can’t do normal, because her worn-down heart doesn’t beat that way, but somehow, Vanessa accepts that. Somehow, by some flamin’ miracle, that doesn’t make Vanessa run like it should. Somehow, instead, that makes her _stay_.

 

Charity isn’t sure if she’ll ever find the reason in that. Maybe she doesn’t want to. Maybe all she wants is to lose herself in this delusion attached to the time bomb that she herself is for a little while, maybe she wants to lose herself in Vanessa’s softness, and forget who she _really_ is and everything she’s ever done.

 

She’s a pragmatist, if nothing else, Charity. She knows that’s all that this can be, something quick, with a tragically short shelf life, because she isn’t capable of not driving people away, or mad, after a while.

 

Vanessa will get sick of how broken she is after a time, of how little she has to offer in return, beyond her body. Vanessa will tire of her snide jokes and sharp tongue, and her inability to show patience or empathy or the weaker side of herself to anyone.

 

Vanessa will run, just like everyone else has. She’ll leave Charity alone and broken and more in pain than Charity has ever been before.

 

Because she’s not an idiot, she's not some simple blind fool, she knows how special this thing with Vanessa is, how _special_ she is, the fact that she came back to Charity’s bed, time and time and time again, knowing exactly who Charity is, knowing that other people know she’s there too. Everyone else that warms her sheets is ashamed is her, or of themselves for being with her, but not Vanessa. Not anymore.

 

She announced in front of a group of drunken louts that they’d slept together the first time, after Charity had outed her, sure, and only to take control of the knowledge, to let it out on her own terms, but she hadn’t left Charity high and dry after that, no.

 

She’d come back. Again and again and again. She comes back. She _still_ comes back. For _now_.

 

Because Charity is a realist if nothing else.

 

She knows how badly it’s going to hurt, how deep the cut will fall, against the bone, when Vanessa leaves, how she’ll likely feel the wound for the rest of her life, raw and open and never, ever healing.

 

She knows this because Vanessa doesn’t only come to her door in the middle of the night anymore for the pleasure that burns between them with some inhuman flammability. She knows this because Vanessa doesn’t always leave her in the small hours now, sneaking down the stairs while Charity lays wide away and pretends not to hear Vanessa go, while her heart twists painfully in some beautiful choreography, timed perfectly with Vanessa’s footfalls around the room, picking up the clothing that Charity had torn from her so carelessly, desperate to marry skin to skin hours before.

 

She’s always been a light sleeper, she’s always had to be because no one else was going to look out for her while she rests, and she wakes the second she feels Vanessa’s body move away from her, the cold settling against her skin like a dying flame. She pretends to be asleep because it’s easier that way, it’s easier than seeing the pity in Vanessa’s eyes when they look at one another when she backs out the door.

 

No, Vanessa doesn’t always leave anymore, she doesn’t disappear with the rising dawn, sometimes she wakes wrapped around Charity’s body or in her arms, instead. Charity doesn’t know what’s worse, having Vanessa leave in the night, or having her there in the morning, searing a memory into the soft skin of her chest, the memory of what it feels to have a body in her bed that respects her, that Charity thinks, could actually _love_ her one day, knowing that it’s never, ever going to be sustainable.

 

_Maybe it’ll be lethal,_ she thinks absently one morning, waking some time after dawn with Vanessa’s arm draped over her waist, her breath soft on Charity’s shoulder - when Vanessa does finally leave. Maybe it’ll be the thing that finally kills her.

 

She’s withstood so much now, hate, deceit, violence, the war waged by her own self-hatred, and yet the thing that might finally find a way through her armour to slip between her ribs is the kindness of one tiny, insufferably soft blonde.

 

And if it is, then so be it, she wouldn’t die for much, but for this, for the safety of a bed with Vanessa, Charity thinks that _yes_ , she would, because Vanessa can see a part of herself that she didn’t even know still existed, Vanessa has found something she thought snuffed out when she was thirteen.

 

Vanessa has found _hope_.

 

And it’s not misguided, it’s not based on some polished up version of her broken soul, Vanessa knows who she is, and what she’s done, the truth of what she is capable of, and she sees it regardless.

 

_Yes_ , Charity thinks as Vanessa hums gently against the heartbeat in the back of her rib cage, just audible next to her own quiet breathing, almost silent so as not to disturb Vanessa and bring reality between them like a violent storm, _she would die for that._

 

She’s almost died for _far_ less.

 

She doesn't know when this will end, this fragile fairytale playing out in her bed. Maybe she’ll have Vanessa for years, or maybe she’ll leave tomorrow, Charity doesn’t know. All she does know is that she won’t squander a second of it, because she’ll never have anything this sweet on her tongue again.

 

“Charity?”

 

Vanessa’s voice is soft: broken with the roughness of sleep and of screaming her name into an empty house for _hours_ the night before.

 

Charity turns in her arms, trying to hide the traitorous hitch in her breathing at Vanessa’s sleep-mussed hair and smudged panda eyes, because Charity had taken her to bed the second she’d walked through the door, and hadn’t let her up since. Vanessa is beautiful in the mornings, easily the finest thing Charity has ever touched with her bare hands, not that Charity will ever tell her that. She tries to hide the way she really feels behind salacious looks and harsh laughs, but Vanessa sees through it all, she always has. Vanessa knows exactly how deeply Charity feels, and that scares her more than _anything_ else. Maybe even more than her leaving does.

 

She thinks that maybe she loves Vanessa in a way, already, for what she’s already given her, as much as her sharp, shredded heart is capable of now, but she can taste cruel defeat on her tongue, of a future lost before it even begins. Charity won’t keep Vanessa from running in the end, because she won’t have pity in place of affection, but she knows how to keep her here now, with her body, with the only thing she has ever had at her disposal.

 

She pulls Vanessa to her hard, as the softness of the morning halts like a soldier, her lips meeting Vanessa’s with a kiss that she knows will bruise, suddenly desperate, dangerous, _hot_ , but instead of pushing her away, instead of holding Charity at an arm's length with a sneer of disgust, Vanessa kisses her back.

 

Because she knows the darkness that lingers in Charity’s palms, she knows that gentle isn’t something Charity is used to having in any aspect of her life, let alone in her bed, she knows roughness is what Charity _needs_ sometimes, more than she needs to breathe.

 

Sometimes Vanessa fights her for dominance but not today, she must feel the desperation in Charity’s touch this morning, she must feel that Charity _needs_ dominance today, so she bends, she acquiesces, instead. But she doesn’t buckle, because Vanessa Woodfield is no wilting flower, Charity has the scratches on her back and the bite marks on her inner thighs to prove it.

 

Charity rolls Vanessa onto her back, smiling like lust and pride personified as the breath leaves Vanessa in a huff and she climbs up, a knee on either side of Vanessa’s hips and her hands holding Vanessa’s wrists above her head. She takes in the small flicker of panic, that crosses Vanessa’s eyes at the hunger in her own, but it doesn’t hold, it’s replaced by something Charity thinks is trust, instead.

 

(But she can’t be _sure_ , it’s been so long since Charity’s seen it after all)

 

Her hands curl around Vanessa’s wrists, her nails digging into the deliciously soft flesh of Vanessa’s wrists, smiling as they give way to her strength, before she kisses Vanessa, hard. Her tongue pushes against Vanessa’s, suddenly ravenous, lost to hunger, and Vanessa gives as hard in return, straining against Charity’s hold, challenging her in the way that Charity _loves_ , that Charity yearns for during quiet afternoons across the bar.

 

Charity takes, she claims every inch of skin that she can, marking the woman beneath her like a fury, like Vanessa had done in the small hours of the morning to her, so that no one will be able to question for even a second that Vanessa is hers, and she’ll wear her own wounds like a crown to show them all that she’s Vanessa’s too. That Vanessa _wants_ her, too.

 

She stops to catch a breath, her forehead against Vanessa’s while they both pant like animals, desperately taking oxygen in, her ribs _creaking_ with it, when something changes. Charity’s hand stills over as it runs over Vanessa’s bare shoulder, down towards her breast, her nails pausing in the wake of the four lovely red lines across Vanessa’s skin.

 

She freezes, stop-still, like a deer in the headlights, like she hasn’t done in _years_ . Vanessa looks to her, and her face is worried, terrified even, and Charity is waiting for her to turn away in disgust or pity and sneer or _something_ , like all the others have ever done, but she doesn’t.

 

She waits, for a second, for a moment, for Charity to give her some sign or signal to stop, but she doesn’t give it, she doesn’t _want_ to, and Vanessa sees that, sees _her_ ….

 

…. and then she lifts herself up, towards Charity, not away from her, and kisses her.

 

Vanessa isn’t gentle, because she knows Charity doesn’t want that, _can’t_ have that right now. She needs fire. She needs something to bring her back to life.

 

Vanessa doesn’t ask her if she’s ok, because she knows Charity will fall apart if she does, and because she’s not. But she _could_ be.

 

Vanessa’s arms wind around Charity’s shoulders, pulling her close, flush against her naked chest, shutting the world out, shutting her past and future out to, until only her present remains. She bites into Charity’s bottom lip with careful teeth and sinks her hands into Charity’s already messy hair, nails scratching against her scalp, making her groan, making them both moan before wrapping a calf around Charity’s thigh, holding them breathlessly close.

 

“Tell me where you are,” Vanessa whispers messily against her lips between kisses. “Charity, tell me where you are.”

 

“Here, babe,” Charity says with a gravelly sigh, and it’s an affirmation for Vanessa, but it’s for her too, Charity knows it is, to stabilise herself against Vanessa’s strong and solid heartbeat. “I’m here.”

 

“Good,” Vanessa sighs, losing herself in their next kiss, her tongue and hands and body firm and grounding and insistent.

 

And it’s enough, it’s _just_ enough to tether her to the ground, it’s enough to tether her to Vanessa here in her bed, in _their_ bed. It’s enough to keep her breathing. Vanessa is enough. Charity’s blood is like poison, even to herself, but Vanessa gives her body as the cure.

 

The rabid hunger is still there, will always still be there, Charity thinks, but there’s a languorousness to Vanessa’s kisses now, they’re bone-deep, they’re scorching, they’re _branding_ , and Charity knows that no one will ever give her the like again in her life. Vanessa is clever, she turns the tide, she uses the momentum of Charity’s panic to calm her, like harnessing the power of a storm, she catches Charity in her arms and changes the racing of Charity’s heart to a rhythmic pounding.

 

To a heavy tattoo of something else entirely.

 

And Charity doesn’t resist for one second.

 

She thinks about it, her body moving out of muscle memory, pushing automatically against the will of another, but her heart catches her mind in time. _No_ , it thinks. _Let her. It’s what you want. You know it’s what you want._

 

So she listens, she moves against Vanessa again but it’s different this time, it’s calmer, like the wind in the eye of the storm, exactly where Charity feels this bed rests now, in the chaotic scheme of her life.

 

She takes her lips from Vanessa’s mouth, smiling at how swollen they are, pleased by how dark her eyes look, too, and begins her descent. Her tongue carves a path across Vanessa’s collarbone, leaving a purple bloom that will almost certainly creep above the line of her blouse later, but Charity doesn’t care. She doesn’t think Vanessa does either. Vanessa’s nipple is firm beneath her thumb, her whole body shuddering beneath Charity’s thighs when she touches her for the first time, quaking harder when Charity uses her mouth around the sensitive flesh instead, and then her teeth.

 

She releases the bud with a filthy groan, mirroring the one Vanessa makes above her, making to move down Vanessa’s body further when a voice breaks the concerto of their heavy breathing.

 

“No,” Vanessa mutters quickly, her hand closing over Charity’s wrist where it splays over her belly. “Up here. I want you up here.”

 

“Not half needy, you,” Charity throws like a barb, but there’s no strength to the blow, and Vanessa knows it. She doesn’t even scowl or roll her eyes, she smiles, instead, because she can hear _her_ Charity in the voice that leaves her body, not the other broken one. They both can.

 

Vanessa brings out something in her, something softer, but she’s still _her_ , she’s not some lovesick and mushy sap, she doesn’t want to melt against Vanessa like some naïve lover while Vanessa whispers platitudes to her as she takes Vanessa slowly.

 

There’s a nip in her next kiss to Vanessa’s breast that Vanessa hisses at, but she doesn’t tell Charity to stop or soften, she reaches for it instead, and it’s that which Charity knows will hurt the most, in the end: Vanessa knows she’s an animal, Vanessa knows she’s a monster, and Vanessa stays anyway.

 

Vanessa might love her in spite of it.

 

She shakes the thought from her mind for now, because she’s not some sentimental fool, she’s not a silly teen with a tragically misguided view of this world, she’s Charity Dingle, who has lived in the dark since she was a child.

 

Her hand moves down Vanessa’s body like she owns it, over her stomach and between her thighs, growling in satisfaction at the need she can feel there, laughing at the thickness of it, moaning when Vanessa crashes their lips together to wipe the smug smile off her face. Vanessa’s back arches sharp enough to _crack_ when she pushes in, hard and unforgiving, and Charity revels in the way that Vanessa takes everything she gives, blindly and without question.

 

This thing with Vanessa, it’s different to _everything_ else, Charity thinks as she thrusts quick and relentless and Vanessa falls apart beneath her. This will kill her, she knows it will.

 

Vanessa’s voice breaks when she comes, moaning Charity’s name over and over and over like a prayer, like she’s a deity and not some small, inconsequential mortal.

 

It’ll be fatal, Vanessa’s kindness. It’ll end her.

 

She just wonders how long it will be until it does.

  

-


End file.
